We are used, in Western art music, to being able to identify a piece of music and its composer. The ‘piece’ is represented by the written notation; it can be realised in somewhat different ways in different performances. One of the problems we have in applying our concepts of composition to the music of other cultures is that it is not always easy the identify a ‘piece’ of music (an item of repertoire), as distinct from a particular performance.

Author(s): The Open University

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We read increasingly of the problem of information overload. Earlier, we emphasised the importance of designing appropriate information representations to assist human interpretation in order to create actionable knowledge. Information visualisation is concerned explicitly with designing representations using intuitive visual metaphors and graphics to highlight the most important aspects of information structures and processes. Information visualisation is a rapidly emerg

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The totality of the accounting rules in any one country at any one time represents an accumulation of rules that have been brought in over many years (even centuries, in the French case). In remembering that, it becomes clear why the rules are sometimes inconsistent: they have been put together by different people, at different times, and in the face of different circumstances and priorities. It also makes clear why it would be optimistic to expect close comparability between national sets of

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Much of the policy literature is imbued with a rather mechanical conception of change: ideas about ‘pulling levers’ to make things happen, or about applying different ‘tools’ or ‘instruments’, all conceive the policy system as something like a machine itself. Component parts – the government departments, regulatory bodies, delivery organisations, and even the people who staff them – are viewed as connected though static and predictable mechanisms. The system is seen as non-ada

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Bureaucracy as a concept has had an interesting career: it begins in France in the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the German state constructed by its first Chancellor, Bismarck, was a model bureaucracy in both its armed forces and civil administration. Weber (1978) realised that the creation of the modern state of Germany had only been possible because of the development of a disciplined state bureaucracy and a bureaucratised standing army – innovations pioneered in Prussia

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This unit looks at the management of local knowledge-generating practices. You will explore the processes that link practices to global contexts and learn to identify the key dimensions of globalisation and explore the implications for knowing how to ‘do things’ in a variety of contexts. You will go on to compare the approaches to managing and organising, based on universally applicable principles, with context-specific rationalities and look at how viable interpretations of reality might

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You have just seen how an objective to maximise market share may not be compatible with an objective to maximise profits. Businesses may have multiple objectives, many of which conflict. Think, for example, how difficult it would be for an oil refinery to both maximise profits and minimise the effect upon the environment of its production activities. Similarly, maintaining high product quality while minimising costs would be extremely difficult.

Imagine if a business was struggling. Its

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This approach stresses that people's behaviour and performance are strongly influenced by the environment in which they find themselves. So being successful in a job in one organisation does not necessarily imply success in a similar job in another. In assessing the suitability of a job applicant a manager should explore the reasons why a person has performed well in their existing job and consider whether similar conditions apply in the new job. Advocates of the person-organisation fit appro

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Probably the single most important way of retaining people's support and goodwill is to say thank you promptly and to demonstrate that you have noted and valued whatever it is they have contributed. If you do not have the systems to guarantee that supporters are thanked appropriately, then you cannot seriously expect to move anyone anywhere – be it up a pyramid, into a kite or round a matrix.

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If your analysis of the problem and its possible causes is thorough, it should enable you to rewrite the problem statement to include the causes. If you can clarify your objective by defining a desired end-state, you are more likely to produce a good solution.

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